Mermaid Prince
by quickand2thepointless
Summary: A person can only be content staying beside someone for so long before they'll still try to reach for what they can't have. Soren knows their story can only end in one way, but Ike may have a happier conclusion in mind. RD Ike/Soren one-shot with background Mist/Boyd.


**A/N: **As promised in "Hatred and Love," it's time for the second FE Ike/Sore one-shot I vowed to write! This one takes place during the RD timeline, and also pretty much follows up on the emotions present in "Hatred and Love." Some time has passed though, and Ike might be a little bit the wiser for it.

This one is actually worked from an odd prompt the person who requested it gave me about how she hated the story of "The Mermaid Princess/The Little Mermaid," and how having a blunt but good natured hero like Ike would make it cooler. I hope this is close to what she wanted, because (as always) I put my own little spin on things!

**Timeline/Spoilers: **Timeline is RD after crossing the Ribahn while fleeing the Begnion and shortly before they're forced into the Kauku caves. Slight spoilers for the details of Soren's past.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Fire Emblem or the premise of The Mermaid Princess belong to me, but this particular retelling of them is mine!

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**Mermaid Prince**

Soren's feet were throbbing. As a mercenary, he was accustomed to long treks without much in the way of rest, but their flight from Begnion to Gallia was beginning to overtax him. It was one thing to tramp across flat plains or even the cliffside paths that had winded near the heart of the capital, but the air and heat of the jungle were suffocating to him. They couldn't afford to ditch their armor with the threat of battle drawing closer and closer, and tempers were running high among the beorc who were suffering from not only the heat, but the lack of sleep and rest as well.

"I can't take this anymore," Mist groaned, mopping up her forehead. "I need to think of water. A nice long bath. Taking a ship from Begnion to Gallia on the blue ocean rather than walking."

"Or Daein in the winter," Boyd added. "Remember when the dam was opened in Talrega and we were cold _and _wet?"

"That was nice..."

"No, it wasn't," Ike reminded them. "You were both complaining that time, too."

"Can't you just let us enjoy our fantasies for a little while?"

"We should be keeping our mind on the task at hand, not indulging in fantasies," Soren muttered. "If we continue at this pace, we'll never make it to Gallia ahead of the Central Army."

"My mind _was_ on the task at hand," Mist insisted. "But even if I want to walk, the blisters on my feet don't make it easy to go any faster!"

"Better blisters than the Central Army."

"Soren, could you stop being practical for one second, please?" She closed her eyes and tilted her head upwards to the oppressive sun. "Let's see. Something about water. Hmmm... there was that story Titania told me when I was younger about those legendary creatures that live under the water."

"Mermaids?" Ike asked.

"Yes! It was a story about a mermaid princess who fell in love with a prince."

"Now that I think about it, I wonder if there were mermaids in the past. Sounds a bit like a type of laguz, doesn't it?"

"Never mind that," Boyd said, waving his hand. He had no problem with the laguz, but unlike Ike, he wasn't all that fascinated by their history. "That story is depressing. Doesn't the prince marry someone else? And doesn't the mermaid turn into foam, or something? And since she comes up to land, it doesn't even take place underwater to begin with."

"Not that story," Mist said, sticking out her tongue. "Titania did tell that story, but I hated it because the prince was a jerk and it always made Titania sad, too. So I asked her to make up another one for me."

"What, did she make it so the prince ended up with the mermaid instead?" Boyd asked.

Ike yawned from behind his hand. He'd never had the patience for fairy tales growing up, but preferred the stories his father told of legendary heroes, of demons overtaken by holy light, of weapons with the power to change the world.

"Not exactly. Our new story begins with the princess living in her kingdom in the sea. It's night, and she's swimming alone, far from the palace and the haunting songs and voices of her people. She swims so far out that her body begins to ache and her fins grow exhausted. She knows she should go home to rest and be somewhere safe and protected, but even though she's tired, something keeps moving her forward."

"Maybe the mermaid kingdom's Central Army was after her," Boyd said with a laugh.

Soren eyed Mist with a frown. This story was familiar. Too familiar. There was no way Mist could know how close these emotions brushed to his own history, but it was discomforting all the same.

Suddenly, he could feel Ike's eyes upon him. He wondered if he had shown some of his pain on his face, and if Ike had noticed it in that brief moment. Ike was not always detail oriented, but Soren had noticed that there seemed to be one or two things he never failed to catch, and abrupt changes in Soren's mood were one of them.

"The mermaid kept swimming forward because she could hear a voice in the distance," Mist continued. "It was a voice unlike any other she'd heard before. The voices of the mermaids were beautiful, but terrifying; they were too perfect, and though perfection was something humans found beautiful, the mermaid princess hated the narrowness of a world devoid of both true joy and the true pain that comes with loving something precious. This voice she heard was not perfect, but it spoke to something within. A feeling, a soft yet sharp feeling, began to grow inside her. For the first time, she began to feel happy. But at the same time, she began to feel truly and deeply hurt. She wanted so very badly to be where the voice was, so she had to keep swimming, even if it was painful."

"Um," Boyd said. "This story is getting a bit depressing, too."

_That's the point, you dolt, _Soren snapped in the privacy of his head. _Nothing good in life comes without that kind of journey._

"I think it makes sense," Ike said, out of the blue. "Things come in balance. If you love something, you're going to be happy sometimes because of it, and sad sometimes because of it as well."

Mist paused her story and stared at her brother, open mouthed. "That's not something that I'd expect _you _to understand."

"Gee thanks, Mist."

"Anyways, the princess reached as far as she could before she couldn't swim anymore. She was too tired, and even though the voice was near, it came from above the water, a place she could not go without the risk of losing her life. So she remained there in that spot under the sea for a long time, trying to decide if she should go back home or choose the voice over all else and give up her life for someone who may not ever be able to love her back. But all of a sudden, she realized something. The voice had found a way inside of her. She could hear it everywhere, from all directions. No matter where she went, it was always with her, and even though the sound of it still hurt, she never had to be away from it again. That was the happiest feeling she had ever felt, and also the... and also the...saddest..."

"Geez, don't cry!" Boyd yelped, hooking his arm around Mist's neck and gently grounding his knuckles into her hair as if he thought it would help. "It's okay to think of water, but you need to retain your your own in heat like this!"

"I'm sorry!" Mist said, quickly wiping her eyes. "That part always makes me sad. But I think it's happier than turning into foam, right?"

"Barely. What happened after that?"

"I don't know. Whenever we reached that part, Titania and I would start crying, and we've never been able to get past it yet."

Boyd stared at her incredulously. "Girls. Unbelievable."

"I think it's heading down the same path as you were avoiding," Soren said coolly. "A person can only be content staying beside someone for so long before they'll try to reach for what they can't have anyways. It'll still end with her turning to foam."

"That depends on how you see it," Ike said. "What's this voice she's hearing? Does it have to be the prince?"

"Huh?"

"If I remember correctly, Mist was right when she said the prince from the story was a jerk. The princess rescued him from drowning, and he claimed to love her, but as soon as she lost the one thing that interested him about her- her voice- he stopped caring. That really isn't love, is it? If you love someone for one thing only and ignore everything else that makes them who they are, then that's really not loving a person."

Soren froze, nearly forgetting to move his body forward to put distance between himself and the Central Army. Ike had the same thing in so many words when Soren had confessed to being part-laguz, and it felt oddly powerful to hear him say it again in this context.

Mist seemed to realize the tension behind his words, too. "_How do you even know this?" _she asked, at last picking up her pace to walk beside Ike.

"And she doesn't really have much reason to love him either," Ike continued, ignoring her. "She may have saved him, but the only thing he gave her was false love and a new life which he quickly destroyed. He had the chance to save her in return, but he didn't." Ike shook his head. "Well, I really don't know much about these silly fairy tale stories, but I really don't think that voice has to belong to the prince. It could just be some regular person, you know? Someone who could really love her."

"Hmm," Mist murmured. It looked almost as if she was processing this new information in order to finally work out the end of her story. "And if that person really loves her, she'll be able to find her way to him without turning into foam. Because she won't have to disappear if they can be together..."

"Sentimental hogwash," Soren grumbled.

"What was that, Soren?"

"Nothing."

"You know," Ike said suddenly, fixing his eyes on Soren. "I think I met a mermaid once. Remember after we rescued Reyson and Leanne in the Serenes Forest during the Mad King's War? The Apostle let the women use the fancy indoor baths in the palace to clean off, and the men were allowed to use an open ar spring that was typically reserved for the senators. Everyone else headed out, but the Apostle and Queen Elincia needed to speak with me about leading the army and all that formal stuff, so by time I actually got out to use the bath, everyone else had finished up. But as I got closer and closer to the water, I saw someone there inside it. Someone with long and beautiful black hair that reached past their waist and covered incredibly pale white skin. They turned their head slightly, and I ducked behind a pillar so they wouldn't see me. I thought that something that beautiful almost couldn't be real."

"Sounds like a confession of a peeping Tom to me," Boyd remarked.

"Well, if I had come any closer to it, it probably would have run away," Ike said. His eyes seemed to bore into Soren. "I didn't really see anything, anyways. The person rested in the water for awhile, and then spent some time combing out their hair. But the moment was... special, in a way. It felt like maybe if I had reached out too soon, that person would have turned to mist and disappeared. Maybe that's still a possibility." He bit his lip. "But I felt the same way the mermaid did about that voice. It was something beautiful, but not perfect. Something happy, but painful. And something I would very much like to see again one day."

Soren felt his pace slowing, almost halting to a stop. _That was me_, he thought. _I waited until everyone left the water before going in, and it felt like someone was watching me that whole time. But for some reason I wasn't angry or scared. Was it because it was him? Did he know it was me, or did he really think..._

Ike grabbed Soren's arm, urging him onwards. "We have to keep moving forward to get to where we're going," he said quietly.

"Er... yes."

_This voice, _he thought to himself, _is the one I've been following from the beginning. There really is only so long you can chase after something like this without wanting to reach out, in spite of your better judgment. Are we reaching that point?_

Soren extended a hand, and Ike coiled his fingers around his wrist, securing him. The jungle was as quiet as the bottom of a lake, and even Boyd and Mist stopped talking to watch the two of them sail forwards, guided by a voice that sounded within them from everywhere, a voice they could always hear.

"I see," Mist said to herself. "That's how he knows. Maybe I just have to wait a little while longer to see what this story's ending will be."

"Hmm?" Boyd said. "Just don't let her turn into foam again, okay? I don't like hearing you talk about love stories with unhappy endings." He flushed a little and began fanning himself with his hand, as if it was because of the jungle's heat.

"I don't think it will," Mist said with a smile, a new spring put in her step. "I really don't."


End file.
